You first need to select your timezone so that your system knows where it is
located. Look for your timezone in /usr/share/zoneinfo, then copy
it to /etc/localtime. Please avoid the
/usr/share/zoneinfo/Etc/GMT* timezones as their names do not
indicate the expected zones. For instance, GMT-8 is in fact GMT+8.

The core around which all distributions are built is the Linux kernel.
It is the layer between the user programs and your system hardware.
Gentoo provides its users several possible kernel sources. A full
listing with description is available at the Gentoo Kernel Guide.

For PPC64 you should use gentoo-sources.

# emerge gentoo-sources

When you take a look in /usr/src you should see a symlink called
linux pointing to your kernel source. In this case, the installed
kernel source points to gentoo-sources-2.6.17-r5. Your version may be
different, so keep this in mind.

Now it is time to configure and compile your kernel source. There is the
ability to use "genkernel" which would create a generic kernel like the
ones used on the installation CDs, but it is not fully functional for PPC64 at
the moment.

Continue now with Manual Configuration.

Manual ConfigurationIntroduction

Manually configuring a kernel is often seen as the most difficult procedure a
Linux user ever has to perform. Nothing is less true -- after configuring a
couple of kernels you don't even remember that it was difficult ;)

However, one thing is true: you must know your system when you
configuring a kernel manually. Most information can be gathered by emerging
pciutils (emerge pciutils) which contains lspci. You will now
be able to use lspci within the chrooted environment. You may safely
ignore any pcilib warnings (like pcilib: cannot open
/sys/bus/pci/devices) that lspci throws out. Alternatively, you can run
lspci from a non-chrooted environment. The results are the same.
You can also run lsmod to see what kernel modules the Installation CD
uses (it might provide you with a nice hint on what to enable).

# cd /usr/src/linuxImportant: In case you are in 32-bit userland, you must edit the top
level Makefile in /usr/src/linux and change the CROSS_COMPILE option to
CROSS_COMPILE ?= powerpc64-unknown-linux-gnu-. You must do this before you run
make menuconfig or it may result in kernel compilation problems.
# make menuconfig

You will be greeted with several configuration sections. We'll first
list some options you must activate (otherwise Gentoo will not function,
or not function properly without additional tweaks).

Activating Required Options

First of all, activate the use of development and experimental
code/drivers. You need this, otherwise some very important code/drivers
won't show up:

Now go to File Systems and select support for the filesystems you
use. Don't compile them as modules, otherwise your Gentoo system
will not be able to mount your partitions. Also select Virtual
memory, /proc file system, and /dev/pts file system for
Unix98 PTYs:

File systems --->
[*] Virtual memory file system support (former shm fs)
[*] /proc file system support
[*] /dev/pts file system for Unix98 PTYs
(Select one or more of the following options as needed by your system)
<*> Reiserfs support
<*> Ext3 journalling file system support
<*> JFS filesystem support
<*> Second extended fs support
<*> XFS filesystem support

You will find some of the mentioned options under Pseudo
filesystems which is a subpart of File systems.

If you are using PPPoE to connect to the Internet or you are using a
dial-up modem, you will need the following options in the kernel (you
will find the mentioned options under Networking support which is
a subpart of Device Drivers):